One Painting....Different Presidents

Happy Fourth of July!


The title of this painting is Avenue in the Rain (1917) and is part of the White House collection. It was donated during the administration of President John F. Kennedy and initially hung in President Kennedy’s bedroom. Later it was placed in the President’s Dining Room.

In the picture below we see the painting has moved again and is behind President Ronald Reagan.


Today, the painting remains in the Oval Office and is see along with President Obama.

You can see more images from the flag series and find out more about the artist in my current posting at History is Elementary here.

The First Nixon Library

The current issue of Prologue has an article in it about the first Nixon library - a little library in Hong Kong that was named for then Vice President Richard Nixon!
Except for its name, there was little remarkable about the modest library that stood in the neighborhood of Yuen Long on the outskirts of Hong Kong from 1954 until 1977.

It held only a few thousand books and employed just one librarian, and its patrons were mostly schoolchildren, farmers, and shopkeepers. Nevertheless, the humble building was a monument to Richard Nixon.

The library was also a relic of the creation of Nixon’s reputation as an expert in foreign affairs, the cornerstone of his campaigns for the White House and his defenders’ view of his administration. It began in large measure with his world travels as Vice President, including infamous trips to Latin America in 1958 (where he faced violent pro–Communist mobs) and the Soviet Union in 1959 (where he dueled with Nikita Khrushchev). Those trips, however, might not have happened without his first, successful tour of Asia and the Middle East in 1953–a story told in the records at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

The article goes on to talk about Nixon's trip in detail and then tells about the how the library came to be named after Nixon:
As he presented them to the Nixons, Sales announced that the Vice President had just given him permission to have the Jaycees’ next children’s library named after him. The library, under construction in Yuen Long, was the 11th to be built by Jaycees, which had made a project of providing for underprivileged children around the colony. Nixon could hardly have refused the offer, since during the speech he had praised the Jaycees and the Rotarians (who were cosponsoring the luncheon) for their local projects helping young people, which he said contributed to international peace.

The article then goes back to Nixon and his use of the trip, but we also hear what happened to this little library:
Back in Hong Kong, work proceeded on the addition to the building in Yuen Long that was to hold the future Nixon Library. It was dedicated on February 28, 1954, and Nixon sent Sales a telegram to be read at the ceremony: "There is nothing that gives me more pleasure than to have my name associated with your new children’s library. . . . I can think of no factor more important to a free, independent, and prosperous Asia than the opportunity for the youth of Asia to learn the truth, untarnished by Communist propaganda."

A local notable named Tang Kin Sun and a volunteer named Snowpine Liu, a Nationalist refugee from the mainland, took over the library’s fundraising and operations. Liu, who had attended American universities and had taught in Chinese schools, asked Nixon for help in obtaining a visa to the United States. There is no response to that request in the files, but Nixon’s office corresponded with Liu over the next decade. From time to time, Nixon made small but significant financial contributions to the library, which (with the Richard Nixon Elementary School in his hometown of Yorba Linda, California) was one of the few institutions to bear his name. He also sent the library a copy of a biography, This Is Nixon, by reporter James Keogh, who later became President Nixon’s head speechwriter.

After losing the 1960 presidential campaign to John Kennedy and the 1962 California gubernatorial election to Pat Brown, Nixon moved to New York City to become the lead partner in a major law firm. Part of Nixon’s work with the firm involved traveling around the world to meet with clients, a convenient reason for the former Vice President to keep himself in the public eye by making pronouncements on foreign policy at home and abroad. He made several such passes through Hong Kong, meeting with Liu on three occasions and visiting the library himself in 1966.

In February 1969, just three weeks into Nixon’s presidency, Liu called on the President in the Oval Office, where they met and talked about the library’s future. Liu proposed raising funds to expand the library and give it a permanent, independent home. Nixon was noncommittal, but Liu enthusiastically began soliciting donors by telling them the President supported the plan, which alarmed lower-level officials. The U.S. Information Agency, which had informally supported the library for some time, argued instead for moving the library into the Yuen Long town hall, then under construction. Such a move, USIA director and longtime Nixon associate Frank Shakespeare argued, would bolster American standing in Hong Kong while also denying "a high visibility target five miles from the Chinese mainland for Leftist [protesters]." The State Department later chimed in with its own concerns that Liu had been seeking donations from individuals tied to the Nationalist government on the island of Taiwan, which the department worried could cause "very considerable embarrassment" to the United States by politicizing what had formerly been a politically neutral cultural organization.

In classic Nixon administration style, the issue was staffed out, and the unlikely bureaucratic vehicle for resolving the controversy over the future of the reading room was the National Security Council under the direction of Henry Kissinger. In an April 1969 memorandum, Kissinger summarized the options: leaving the library in place, providing funds to transfer it to the Yuen Long town hall, or committing the U.S. government to raising $100,000 to build the new, independent library building. Kissinger, echoing the State Department and USIA, recommended moving the library to the town hall; President Nixon agreed, and directed that USIA inform Liu of his decision. (Ironically, Kissinger later complained that bureaucratic politics tended to produce options papers that narrowed the scope for presidential decision-making by presenting "two absurd alternatives as straw men bracketing [the bureaucracy’s] preferred option—which usually appears in the middle position.") Liu backed off from his independent proposal, and the library was moved into the Yuen Long town hall.

In June 1971, Shakespeare met with Nixon in the Oval Office and discussed an inspection tour of USIA facilities in East Asia. During the meeting, which was captured on the Nixon taping system, Shakespeare told Nixon that he had visited the Nixon Library. "I went in there and there must have been 150 young children quietly reading," Shakespeare told the President. "You know, if you went to a library where there are American kids, there’s always that little hubbub of noise and students shooting spitballs. Those Chinese kids are amazing. They sat there and you couldn’t hear a sound. . . . It’s attractive, it’s well decorated, it’s light, it’s airy, and it’s very well used." Nixon murmured his approval.

Soon thereafter, the administration—engrossed successively by the opening to mainland China, the reelection campaign of 1972, and then the mounting pressures of Watergate—could no longer afford the luxury of taking an interest in the Hong Kong institution. The library’s end came, unnoticed, in 1978 when its collection was transferred to the Yuen Long municipal government and became the core of the Yuen Long Public Library. At the same time, Nixon was drafting his memoirs and preparing to embark on a broader project of rehabilitating his reputation based on his mastery of foreign affairs, a topic he discussed in the memoirs. It was as a result of the 1953 trip through Hong Kong and the rest of Asia, Nixon wrote, "that I knew that foreign policy was a field in which I had great interest and at least some ability."

This article also has a lot of good information on the political aspets of this trip for Nixon and his career, but I enjoyed the story of the library.

Cross of Gold Speech

Also on the LOC's list was William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold Speech. We actually discussed this speech on the blog when we asked "Which was the most important campaign speech?" This speech came in fourth. (You can see transcripts of all four speeches from that discussion here.]

I found an audio version of the speech (recorded by Bryan in 1923) on YouTube for you. It has an introduction from NPR. The person who put this up on YouTube has a question at the beginning - see if you can catch the narrator's mistake!

FDR's Fireside Chats

I'm continuing my series on the presidential items on the LOC's National Recording Registry. We have already posted twice here on FDR's Fireside Chats, so you can first visit those back posts: here and here.

For today, I thought I'd post a newsreel from one of the chats. They aren't exactly the same - you can read the transcript and hear the original audio if you'd like as well.

Ford’s Theatre Opens Newly Redesigned Museum to the Public on July 15, 2009

From a press release:

Washington, D.C.— Ford’s Theatre Society will host a museum unveiling on Tuesday, July 14, 2009, at Ford’s Theatre (511 10th Street NW). The invitation-only evening will include an exclusive premiere of the reimagined Ford’s Theatre Museum and a cocktail buffet on the historic stage from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. The Ford’s Theatre Museum is scheduled to reopen to the public following 20 months of renovations on Wednesday, July 15, 2009.

The redesigned Ford’s Theatre Museum seeks to tell the story of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, from his arrival in Washington via train to the day of his assassination. New exhibits feature information about Lincoln’s cabinet and Civil War milestones as well as recreations of a theatre box, Lincoln’s White House office and Mary Surratt’s boarding house. The Museum also features a remarkable collection of historic artifacts, including the deringer that John Wilkes Booth used to shoot the president, the suit and boots worn by Lincoln to Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, and much more.

The Museum Unveiling event benefits the Ford’s Theatre Annual Fund. Individual tickets are $500. Interested patrons should call (202) 434-9526 for further information about the event. Limited space is available for press wishing to cover this event. Press should contact Lauren Beyea at (202) 434-9543.

Ford’s Theatre Society

Since its reopening in 1968, more than a hundred years after the April 14, 1865, assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Ford’s Theatre has been one of the most visited sites in the nation’s capital. Ford’s Theatre has captivated visitors because of its unique place in United States history, and its mission to celebrate the legacy of Abraham Lincoln and explore the American experience through theatre and education. For its accomplishments, the organization was honored in 2008 with the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given by the U.S. government to artists, arts institutions and arts patrons.

Ford’s Theatre Society works to present the Theatre’s nearly one million visitors each year with a high quality historical and cultural experience, enhancing the vibrancy of this historic site, an important tool for promoting the ideals of leadership, humanity and wisdom espoused by Abraham Lincoln.

Since the arrival of Paul R. Tetreault as Director, Ford’s Theatre Society has been recognized by the critics and theatergoing public for the superior quality of its artistic programming. With works from the nationally acclaimed “Big River” to the regional premiere of “Trying” and world premiere of “Meet John Doe,” Ford’s Theatre has undoubtedly begun to make its mark on the American theatre landscape.

In addition, through the leadership of Wayne R. Reynolds, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, the mission of Ford’s Theatre Society has recently been expanded to include education as a central pillar of the organization, equal to that of producing theatre of the highest quality. As Ford’s Theatre looks to the future, the health of the organization will be defined and determined not only by the quality of the productions on the stage but also by the success of its educational programming in teaching about the life, Presidency and lessons of leadership of Abraham Lincoln.

For more information on Ford’s Theatre and the Ford’s Theatre Society, please visit www.fords.org.

MEDIA CONTACT: Lauren Beyea

Lindbergh's arrival in DC

You might remember that I mentioned the LOC's National Recording Registry and the items on this year's list in an earlier post. Well, I went over the entire list and picked out the presidential ones to highlight here. I thought it would be a fun series. I already did Coolidge's inauguration, and now here is the speech that Coolidge gave on Lindbergh's reception in DC. You can hear the speech at the Spirit of St. Louis 2 Project (and a lot of other parts of this recording are there as well if you are interested in more on Lindbergh). You can also read the entire transcript of the speech.

I also found another story linking Coolidge and Lindbergh, as President Coolidge an award from National Geographic to Lindbergh as well.

Off-topic: I also found it really interesting the number of cultural recordings chosen that encompass such a wide variety of Americana. For instance, "Respect!" by Aretha Franklin is on the list as is "Nevermind." by Nirvana and the Star Wars soundtrack! So the entire list is definitely worth taking a look at for for personal enjoyment.

Obama the Robot

Thanks to Greg for this link!

At Disney World you can visit the Hall of Presidents to see past presidents. Barack Obama's robot will be unveiled on July 4th. The entire exhibit has been undergoing a face lift and will be ready on the 4th as well. President Obama helped in the creation of this robot and recorded its audio for it. Presidents Clinton and Bush also added their audio to this exhibit in the past.

The robot figure is as close to the original as it can be:
The Obama figure is the result of attention to minute details by Disney sculptors, animators, engineers and even anatomists who pored over presidential photographs and video of him and then drew on the latest advances in robotic technology.

Thus the audio-animatronic Obama purses its lips to pronounce its b’s and p’s in a way frighteningly evocative of the real one, and raises its hands, open-palmed, while shrugging its shoulders, in a way that can only be described as Obamaesque. Even the president’s wedding ring, with its braided design, has been recreated.

So something fun to look forward to if you plan on visiting Walt Disney World in the future!